


Surprise!

by patch_n_shaggy



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Episode 5x12 - Pandorica opens, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:39:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patch_n_shaggy/pseuds/patch_n_shaggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hello, I'm the Doctor." - "That's new."</p>
<p>This time when the Pandorica opens, it's not empty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surprise!

**Author's Note:**

> We do not own Doctor Who.

„Hello, I'm the Doctor.“.

„That's new.“.

# # # # #

He always thought it was a fairy tale, just a legend. But now he was standing in front of the Pandorica in all its glory. He was stroking its black surface full of amazement. And he started talking: “There was a goblin. Or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.”

“How did it end up there?”, Amy asked from the back. “You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.”,the Doctor responded. “I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him.”, River interjected and gave Amy her torch to take a closer look at the Pandorica herself. 

“So it's kind of like Pandora's Box, then? Almost the same name.” “Sorry, what?” The Doctor hadn't really listen to the redhead. “The story. Pandora's Box, with all the worst things in the world in it. That was my favourite book when I was a kid. What's wrong?”, Amy continued. 

That caught the Doctor's attention: “Your favourite school topic, your favourite story. Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence.” With that he turned back to the Pandorica. 

“So can you open it?”, River wanted to know. “Easily. Anyone can break _into_ a prison. But I'd rather know what I'm going to find first.” “You won't have long to wait. It's already opening.”, River concluded after a first analyses of the box, “There are layers and layers of security protocols in there, and they're being disabled, one by one. Like it's being unlocked from the inside.” Curiously she pressed her ear against the surface, but she couldn't hear a thing. 

“How long do we have?” The Doctor looked worried. “Hours at most. “, River presumed. “What kind of security?” “Everything. Deadlocks, time-stops, matter-lines.”, River listed.

“What could need all that?”, the Doctor wondered.  
“What could get past all that?”, River rephrased.

“Think of the fear that went into making this box. What could inspire that level of fear?”, he mused. Then suddenly he turned to the Pandorica and whispered to the creature in it. “Hello, you. Have we met?”

“So why would it start to open now?”, River wanted to know. But he didn't have an answer to that. “No idea.”

“And how could Vincent have known about it? He won't even be born for centuries.”, Amy broke in. “The stones!”, the Doctor shouted, “These stones are great big transmitters, broadcasting a warning to everyone, everywhere, to every time zone. The Pandorica is opening!” 

“Doctor – everyone, everywhere?”, River tried to caught his attention, starting to grow concern. 

“Even poor Vincent heard it in his dreams. What's in there, what could justify all this?”, he continued, ignoring the curlyhead. 

“Doctor, everyone?” River started to sound alarmed. 

“Anything that powerful, I'd know about it. Why don't I know?”, the Doctor mused.

“Doctor, you said everyone could hear it. So who else is coming?”, River pressed on and finally the Timelord listened.  
“Oh.”  
“Oh? Oh, what?”, Amy interjected concerned. She didn't want to hear an 'Oh' from the Doctor. No one did. An 'Oh' was never a good sign. It means trouble started to get real.

“Okay, if it is basically a transmitter, we should be able to fold back the signal.” River took the lead.  
“Doing it.”  
“Doing what?”, Amy wanted to know. “Stonehenge is transmitting, it's been transmitting for a while.”, River explained. “So who heard?”

“Okay, should be feeding back to you now. River, what's out there? Can get anything?”  
“Give me a moment.”  
“River, quickly, anything?”, the Doctor pressed on.  
“Around this planet, there are at least 10,000 starships.”, River informed.  
“At least?”, Amy interjected.  
“10,000, 100,000, 1 million, I don't know. There's too many readings.”  
The Doctor grew concerned. “What kind of starships?”  
Suddenly the voice of an Dalek echoed through the room.  
“Daleks. Those are Daleks.”, Amy recognized.  
“Daleks, Doctor.”, River confirmed.

There was no doubt. “Yea, okay. Okay, okay, okay. Dalek fleet. Minimum 12,000 battleships, armed to the teeth. Aaah...”, the Doctor exclaimed, “but we've got surprise on our side! They'll never expect three people to attack 12,000 Dalek battleships.” The Doctor thought out loud. “Cos we'd be killed instantly. So it would be a fairly short surprise. Forget surprise.”

“Doctor, Cyber-ships.”, River warned.  
“No, Dalek ships, listen to them, those are Dalek ships.”, he contradicted.  
“Yes. Dalek ships _and_ Cyber-ships.”  
“Well, we need to start a fight, turn them on each other. That's easy. It's Daleks – they're so cross... “  
“Sontaran. Four battle-fleets.”  
“Sontarans! Talk about cross, who stole all their handbags?”  
“Terileptil. Slitheen. Chelonian. Nestene. Drahvin. Sycorax. Haemo-goth. Zygon. Atraxi. Draconian. They're all here. For the Pandorica.”, River went on.

The Doctor turned on his heels and faced the Pandorica once more. “What are you? What could you possibly be?”

He ran back to the surface of Stonehenge as they heard the rumbling and whooshing of approaching starships.

# # #

“What do we do?”, Amy asked.  
River tried to get the Doctor's attention. “Doctor, listen to me! Everything that ever hated you is coming here tonight. You can't win this. You can't even fight it. Doctor, this once, just this one time, please, you have to run.”, River begged, worried for his well-being.  
“Run where?”  
“Fight how?”  
“The greatest military machine in the history of the universe.”, he answered as a flash of inspiration crossed his mind.  
“What is? The Daleks?” Amy wondered.  
“No, no, no.”, the doctor corrected her. “The Romans!”

# # #

“Yes, I know that, Rory. I'm not exactly one to miss the obvious. But we need everything we can get. Okay, Cyber-weapons. This is basically a sentry box. So, headless wonder here was a sentry. Probably got himself duffed up by the locals. Never underestimate a Celt.”

“Doctor...”, Rory tried to catch his attention. But the Timelord was to busy puzzle about their situation.  
“Hush, Rory. Why leave a Cyberman on guard? Unless it's a Cyberting in the box. But why would they lock up one of their own? Okay, no, not a Cyberthing, but what, what?”  
The Doctor turned to the Roman and shoved his nose into his face. “No, I'm missing something obvious, Rory! Something big, something right slap in front of me. I can feel it!”  
“Yeah, I think you probably are.”  
“I'll get it in a minute.”

Two heartbeats later, the Timelord came back, watching Rory with confusion and alertness, poking him. 

“Hello again.”, he greeted.  
“Hello.”  
“How've you been?”  
“Good. Yeah, good. I mean, Roman.”  
“Rory, I'm not trying to be rude, but you died.” The Doctor was done with the pleasantry.  
“Yeah, I know. I was there.”  
“You died and then you were erased of time. You didn't just die, you were never born at all, you never existed.”, the Timelord pointed out.  
“Erased? What does that mean?”, Rory asked confused, but of course the Doctor wasn't listening.  
“How can you be here?”  
“I don't know. It's kind of fuzzy.”, the Roman committed.  
“Fuzzy?”, the Timelord echoed.  
“Well, I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting!”

Rory turned to the unconscious Amy. “Did she miss me?”, he wanted to know. 

But a strange voice interrupted their conversation. It was the sound of stone against stone, accompanied by a whoosh of air, flowing out of there it once was held and back into freedom. The Doctor rushed back to the Pandorica followed closely by Rory. 

“What's happening?”, the Roman asked.  
“It's opening.”, the Doctor whispered, sounded breathless, almost scared. 

A moment they were blinded by a bright light. The silhouette of a humanoid stepped out of his former prison. 

A raspy voice calling out to them: “Hello, I'm the Doctor.”. 

“What?! No! Impossible.”, Rory exclaimed.  
“No. Just improbable.”, the other two said in unison.  
They shared a look. The Doctor was slightly shocked. While the other, wearing a yellow hoodie with 'Why trying to be difficult, when with a little more effort you can be impossible?' labelled on it, light blue jeans and sneakers. And on top of all he was ginger.  
“Ha, I knew you would say that.”, the Pandorica-Doctor sounded triumphantly. 

But the Doctor was to deep in thoughts to react to that. From far away he heard himself saying:  
_“A nameless, terrible thing,”_ Nameless, indeed, he was.  
_“Soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies.”_ True. Sad, but true.  
_“The most feared being in all the cosmos.”_ That was kind of disheartening.  
_“And nothing could stop it, or hold it or reason with it.”_ Those were deeds not easily made.  
_“One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.”_ Hopefully not always.  
_“No, I'm missing something obvious, Rory! Something big, something right slap in front of me. I can feel it!”_ How could he not have seen it? 

“Doctor?”, Rory broke him out of his thoughts. 

“Well, that's new.” 

“For you. For me its more like over thousand years old.”, the ginger interjected.  
“What's that supposed to mean?”, Rory asked.  
“Spoilers.”, the two Doctors answered again in unison. 

“Doctor?”, a female voice called and Amy stumbled in. “Who's that?”, she asked confused pointing to the Pandorica-Doctor. 

The Doctor didn't know where to start to explain and so other one took his chance for a joke. 

“Knock, knock.”, he grinned like a Cheshire cat.  
“Who's there?”, Amy joined in after a short moment of hesitation.  
“Doctor!”  
“Doctor who?”  
“Exactly.”, his smile grew even wider. 

For a heartbeat or two, Amy stood there dumbfounded, then realisation light up her face, superseded by surprise. 

“Oh. That's new.”


End file.
